‘Books are there to be read. And a good rule for a bookshop is to let people fall in love with books. Not that you have followed any of the rules I’ve told you …’
‘I am running a business here, Mother, not a public library.’
‘Thought you were running a distillery,’ she grumbled, ‘with all that tasting you are doing.’
‘I’ve tidied the place up. I don’t need your rules. It used to be a mess, Mother.’
‘It was a happy mess that followed some very strict thinking. Rules should be there to help. To let things live. You don’t have rules. You just have a grouchy temperament, Arthur. You need to read more.’
And then she looked at the young Wilbur, after Mr Bagdale yanked the book from him to squeeze it back on the shelf. She placed her book down on her lap. She had no hat, these days, but her white hair was short and elegant, and she wore a red knitted shawl.
‘Don’t worry about him, Old Bean.’
The Ghost smiled. It was strangely reassuring to remember that he had been called Old Bean by Agnes even when he was twelve years old. And then – something else he remembered – the old lady pulled out her little purse and put some shillings down on the counter. ‘There. You should read it. It’s a good book …’
Mr Bagdale gave her a scornful look. ‘Mother! We can’t be giving books away!’
‘It’s not giving … It’s paying. I am paying with my own pension for a book.’
Wilbur felt awkward, and a little ashamed. He knew his brother would not have hesitated to take it. Hell, Dougie would have already shoved the book up his jacket and walked out with it. ‘It’s all right. I can get it from the library …’
And Wilbur quickly walked out and into a grey afternoon as his ghost stood there, watching the front of the Midnight Train arrive right inside the shop.
Agnes’s ghost leaned out. She looked first to her old self and then to her son, taking another swig from his flask. It was hard to read her face, or what she was thinking. But her tight little smile seemed to be fighting back some powerful emotion. ‘Come on, Wilbur … Let’s be on our way.’
Acceptance
‘We don’t have long till the next stop,’ said Agnes, as Wilbur watched old schooldays flash by.
‘So you saw your whole life flash by too?’
‘Yes. Once upon a time.’
‘And how was that? Was it hard?’
She smiled and swallowed and said, ‘It’s always hard. In places. But this is how I see it – a book can contain infinite emotion but when you have finished you close it and put it back on the shelf … What choice do we have except to, well,accept?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Anyway, Old Bean. Look. We’re stopping …’
Out of one side of the carriage Wilbur was at the library, out of the other he was reading a comic with his friend Charlie. And then everything faded, as it tended to do when the train reached a stopping point.
‘When is this?’
‘Oh. Nothing important. Only the first time you ever saw her …’
The First Time He Ever Saw Her
He was there again.
Glossop Road.
Looking around he saw he was inalmostthe exact same place the train had stopped before. Only on the road itself now.
He saw the rubble had been cleared away. In its place was a small row of newly built red-brick council houses.
And then the Ghost turned around and saw himself in his scruffy school uniform and tattered shoes with holes in the toes – sitting out on the doorstep reading Hemingway with a frowning expression of focus.
